In the past, home automation in residential environments was a luxury, but today it has become a human need. Although costs have decreased, there are households that do not have sufficient infrastructure for this type of technology. For this reason, this document describes the implementation of a low-cost intelligent system that makes it easy to control the facilities of a department. The actions are coordinated using the Amazon’s Alexa digital voice assistant, included in the Echo Dot smart device. In the hardware part, conventional household elements are used, coupled to an accessible electronic system whose central processing unit is the ESP8266 embedded card. The link between the stations is made using a free server that works as a bridge to transfer the information. The tests carried out validate this proposal and with it, an initial prototype is presented that can be installed in low-income housing and educational institutions.

Smart Home Control System Using Echo Dot

Appropriate working conditions can improve the working performance of an employee on a company, one of the main concerns nowadays is the thermal stress, due to the affection not only to the productivity of an employee but also for the risk of affections to his health, in this sense, WBGT (Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature) index is widely proved to define thermal discomfort and thermal stress but in some cases is out of reach due to its cost or availability on a certain region of the world, so this work explains the construction of a low cost device WBGT meter built by an Arduino pro mini, three lm35 temperature sensors and an LCD to install the electronic system; Globe temperature and wet bulb temperature was achieved using a matte black sphere and moistened fabric, respectively. After testing the dispositive, the collected information was sent to a computer through serial communication for further analysis which showed acceptable errors on the measurement of the WBGT index taken indoors and outdoors thru the device and compared to the data obtained by a commercial WBGT meter.

Construction of a WBGT Index Meter Using Low Cost Devices

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1878/1/012034/pdf

Maintenance Plan Based on TPM for Turbine Recovery Machinery

This work proposes the development and creation of an automatic monitoring and control system for the dosage of chlorine in the water treatment plant, purifying the vital liquid and avoiding the distribution and consumption of water contaminated by microorganisms. This is achieved by monitoring the physical parameters through the data sent by wireless sensors, acquiring them in a database, sending the data in real time to a web server, where they can be visible to the public, and generating automatic control in Based on the data obtained, this occurs in a water treatment pools. For this, a Raspberry Pi board is used, it acts as a data store, two Arduino Mega, acting as control nodes, a LAN server, and a PID control for the automatic control of chlorine dosage, thus achieving precautionary that the water is disinfected from any microorganism present.

Monitoring System for Physical Water Quality Parameters and Automatic Control for Chlorine Dosing in a Aerator Treatment Plant

This paper presents the design of two advanced control algorithms applying low-cost embedded boards. To obtain experimental results a flow plant design was used. For the first part of the work detailed in this paper, a fuzzy controller was designed and implemented in different embedded boards such as Arduino Uno, Raspberry Pi 3, BeagleBone Black and Udoo Neo Full. Next, an MPC was developed in the Raspberry Pi 3 board, being the only device that provides the necessary technical requirements for the design. Further, the signal conditioning before and after the controller integration with industrial equipment is described. To demonstrate the performance of each board used, and to acquire the data in real time two interfaces were created, for the first controller the interface was developed in LabVIEW software, and for the second one a GUIDE interface was developed in MATLAB software. The tests carried out validate these proposals, which despite the computational cost they require, they present high performance, robustness and good response, when tested in the flow system design.

Comparison Between Fuzzy Control and MPC Algorithms Implemented in Low-Cost Embedded Devices.

Vehicle washing is a profitable business today, but it produces unwanted environmental effects that should be considered; autonomous systems are a viable solution for the optimization of resources in production processes and services. This paper presents the implementation of an automatic resource feeding system for vehicle washing using low cost devices. The system consists of an Arduino Mega controller, ultrasonic sensors to measure the level of liquids, several actuators, Bluetooth communication devices and a mobile application. The results present the consumption of resources in a month of operation, demonstrating the benefits of this proposal.

Automation of the Feeding System for Washing Vehicles Using Low Cost Devices

The present work proposes the automation of a pneumatic press, based on free software and hardware. The project analyzes the behavior of free software versus proprietary technology. The project is based on creating a prototype of a distribution system. The proprietary technology consists in a Siemens S7-1200 programmable logic controller, which monitors the system with an OPC server and a (Human Machine Interface) user interface based on LabVIEW, M. In the other hand, the free technology consists of an M-DUINO controller based on Arduino monitors the system with a LAMP server, and hosts a website programmed in PHP; reducing implementation costs in control processes, without affecting the performance and quality in the industrial process. Research is done to determine the reliability of free software.

Efficiency Analysis Between Free and Paid Hardware and Software in a Pneumatic Press

Intelligent devices, used along with sensors, are becoming more commonplace in industrial contexts. One such device, Amazon Echo (which runs Amazon Alexa), can be used to interact with other industrial systems via voice commands. Taking advantage of this, a skill to control the illumination system of a company has been developed, while also being able to measure power consumption in real time. Besides Echo, the system employs easily obtainable electronic components such as NodeMCU4 and Sonoff Pow, while running open-source software like IDE Arduino and Amazon Developer. Besides the voice commands, the system can be controlled via a cell phone touch app and a manual system. Tests show the skill successfully controls the illumination system and provides accurate power consumption data in real time. This skill can also be replicated in other industrial contexts.

System for Monitoring and Controlling Industrial Lighting with Amazon Alexa

Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machinery were created to reduce manufacturing times for industry, but this type of machinery is costly and therefore only a few uses can recover the investment. However, the progress of electronics in the last decades has allowed to develop affordable CNC machines. This article explains the design and manufacturing process of a low budget CNC milling machine for woodworking. All the structural elements were designed and simulated using PTC CREO, as well as the manufacturing sequence. The control hardware uses commercially available electronics such as Arduino ONE, and stepper motors to move the machine, while the software uses the free open source codes Vetrica Aspire and Universal G Code. The machine was tested on different materials, obtaining good results. The result is a CNC milling machine for woodworking that costs about 50% the price of an equivalent commercial machine, an can therefore be a suitable solution for craft industries.

Design and Construction of a Low Cost CNC Milling Machine for Woodworking

This work implements a system for testing control algorithms. The objective is to find an optimal regulator for the closed-loop speed control of a DC Motor. The system consists of a DC motor, an encoder, the Arduino card and a computer. The speed of the motor is the control variable. First, the transfer function is obtained based on the electrical and mechanical characteristics of the system. The function is reduced based on data obtained experimentally from plant input and output using Matlab’s IDENT tool. The equation that governs the system found allows to simulate the different controllers: proportional, proportional derivative, proportional integral, proportional integral derivative and fuzzy control. The results are displayed in a graphical interface in Labview. In the experiments, closed-loop and open-loop control subsystems are simulated. The experiments indicated that the proportional integral derivative controller has a better response.

Fernando Saá

Papers

Automation of the Feeding System for Washing Vehicles Using Low Cost Devices

Efficiency Analysis Between Free and Paid Hardware and Software in a Pneumatic Press

System for Monitoring and Controlling Industrial Lighting with Amazon Alexa

Design and Construction of a Low Cost CNC Milling Machine for Woodworking

Test System for Control Algorithms on a DC Motor